by Peter Boyles | Aug 23, 2024 | Blasting with Boyles
OPINION
Peter Fonda — “Easy Rider”
The very first time I ever rode a motorcycle was when some kid brought one into the neighborhood that everyone said was stolen. It was a Harley-Davidson; I think they called them hummers; they were small little bikes. I rode it for the first time and my whole life changed.
I’ve been in love with motorcycles since I was in the first part of my teens. I have a running gag there are only two kinds of motorcyclists in the world. People admit they own a Honda, and people that lie about it. Then came me and Harley-Davidson.
Ask yourself, can you name another corporate logo that people get tattooed on their body. You ever seen anyone with Kleenex or Chevrolet tattooed on their body? I know dozens of people that have the bar and shield of Harley-Davidson tattooed on their body. That’s product loyalty. Harley-Davidson is iconic, it’s a way of life. It’s part of the strength of our country.
Last year was the 83rd Sturgis, and along with a number of my outlaw friends, we were there. And, of course, that was the great boycott of Bud Light. Bud Light as you probably know went woke. It was a Bud Light promotion conducted with an actress and Tik Tok personality, a transgender woman. Allegedly the desire was to address Bud Light’s decline and attract younger audiences. Well, shazam, not only did they not attract, they lost. I remember being on the street in Sturgis in the summer of 2023 and the Bud Light long booth bar was empty. I’ve read reports that the product is now down 10% and hasn’t been able to make a comeback. That happened in Sturgis. Knowing that no one learns anything from anything, now Harley-Davidson has gone woke.
The company’s CEO Jochen Zeitz, from Germany and former head of Puma, who took over as CEO in May of 2020, spoke about the great product of Harley-Davidson. At a speech at Zermatt Summit in Switzerland and referring to himself he said, “So I became the Taliban in a substantial way. I decided to share and create a sustainability committee I’m chairing today to change long time Harley-Davidson policies.”
Now for the uninformed, the Taliban is a condemned terrorist group that runs Afghanistan. It killed 3,000 Americans in 9/11 and injured 6,000 more, and another 2,500 U.S. service members were killed going after the Taliban in Afghanistan. In the words of my father, what the hell are you thinking?
The Taliban. How do you compare Harley-Davidson to an international terrorist organization, and believing that your principal demographic is male, veteran, pro Trump Republicans are going to jump with glee, oh boy.
The motorcycle is a huge part of my life and lifestyle, the heart and soul of the machine I love so much, that’s been so much a part of my life. Does it now rest in the caves of Tora Bora?
What did they not understand about going woke and watching Bud Light?
The CEO supports hard line policies on trans care for kids, critical race theory, diversity equity, and inclusion efforts on all levels of the company. Employees are fearful they’re going to lose their jobs after production has been moved to Thailand. There’s a revolt inside of the more than 200 Harley-Davidson dealers to oust the current CEO.
When news breaks out, we break in…. it’s just been announced that Harley-Davidson sees the light. Attempting to avoid a boycott which has its traditions in the Irish land wars where the British hired a rent collector named Captain Charles Cunningham Boycott. The Irish would “boycott” him and not pay their rents. That’s where the term comes from.
Boycotting worked for Cesar Chavez and the grapes, Anheuser Busch was not smart enough to figure out what a boycott was about, but Harley-Davidson to its credit understood the power of its own consumers and quickly withdrew its wokeness. In my reading similar things have happened to John Deere and Tractor Supply. They both went woke then pulled back. Does anyone want to guess when public education and the media will follow suit?
You can see how boycott is working. Fewer people watch mainstream news. More people are putting their kids in private schools or home schools. This is boycotting; Harley-Davidson woke up and smelled the coffee and got the hell out of politically correct Dodge.
There’s a whole lot of Harley-Davidson riders breathing a sigh of relief and patting themselves on the back with pride. The boycott that never got off the ground worked.
Live to ride, ride to live.
— Peter Boyles
by Peter Boyles | Jul 18, 2024 | Blasting with Boyles
Blasting With Boyles
OPINION
In spending my entire adulthood in Denver media — when people ask me where did I grow up, I always respond with I think it’s gonna be Denver. I have witnessed the slide of sources of information for Front Range citizens from a time period of a powerful KOA Radio, two vibrant newspapers in the city, to seemingly all the TV stations getting more than their fair share of viewers.
Interesting enough, more than 8 in 10 of us now get all of our information from a digital device. When is the last time you turned on your television to watch the news?
More than 8 in 10 of us say they get their news from a phone, a computer, their tablets, or something they’re constantly checking, social media.
Now remember, like the Front Range, the country is rapidly losing trust in traditional media providing straight news about politics. Notice the coverage of homelessness in Denver. Those who have lost faith now reaches more than 50 percent in newspaper and daily TV news — in less than a year trust in news media has fallen from 46 percent to 36 percent. A Gallup statistic.
And people have turned to forms like blogs, to influencers, to electric tribal chieftains. It’s important that you know or remember that these are not news organizations. No one is editing, no one is fact checking, as I’ve learned the hard way, no one is certainly writing retractions or corrections.
Separating what is straight news in the Front Range from influencers seems to be one of the first steps. And then also, heads up Kyle Clark, separating reporters and news anchors from commentary. Have you noticed that one on air person will wear all of those hats? And after that these turn out to be just people with opinions. And I say take all of them, including my work, with a grain of salt.
Thomas Jefferson schools us that we are responsible for our own knowledge and well-being about the state of politics or the state of the union. One of the breakdowns that I read to get ready to write this is where people get their news.
This will floor some of us.
78% of us get our news from YouTube.
55%, hold onto your hats, say Facebook.
51% claim they go to Instagram also.
Pinterest 37% visit for news.
Reddit, x (twitter), and an outfit called Snapchat, are other sources.
What does that do to what’s left of Denver’s daily newspaper the Post, or radio stations, or television stations?
Remember, because I do, when I could name media personalities that appeared in Pittsburg as a kid growing up or in Denver as a young man.
We were focused on print and broadcast news. I doubt if my grandson ever actually turns TV on.
Most Americans 65 and older say they get their news from broadcast TV news.
As the age dwindles, younger people, 26% of adults between 30 and 65, say they use cable TV or affiliate websites.
Adults under 30 use social media 41% of the time, YouTube 27% of the time, as news sources. None of them want to use the options the 65 plus Americans say they use.
My question to you is, and it’s serious given the political season we’re walking into, how trustworthy do you consider the source where you receive daily or hourly information about politics, foreign policy (for instance Ukraine, Gaza), homelessness? There is growing distrust of news media in America and how little the American people trust the news media.
So, ask yourself, ask your spouse, ask your partner, or people you work with, where do you get your news and who do you trust? And I think you’ll be amazed to see the truth.
In the one-year period that covered the Brent Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination fight, and the end of the Russian collusion affair, news media trust fell from 46% to 39%, according to the Washington Examiner. Certainly, food for thought.
One of the things I’ve heard since the Biden-Trump debate — if it was a fight they would have stopped it — as a formidable percentage of us had no idea the physical and mental shape that President Joe Biden, who has been governing this country, is in. And that my friends should scare us all.
— Peter Boyles
by Peter Boyles | Jun 20, 2024 | Blasting with Boyles
OPINION
President John L. Lewis
I’ve talked about this many times before, but I grew up in a little steel mill coal mine town on the Allegheny River. And coal miners were a very special part of the men I witnessed growing up. There are two stories that I always remember. One was in the 7th grade and they had school announcements on the public address system when kids lost their parents, or something would happen. The announcement would come before school started. We sat alphabetically and with a name that begins “Bo” the girl behind me had a name that began with “Ca” and the announcement came that her father had died in a coal mine. The infamous Newfield Mine. The roof had fallen in on her dad and I don’t think they ever got his body out.
Later that day I was playing first base with the first organized ball team I played on, and one of the air shafts from the coal mine came up on an angle about 50 yards behind third base. I remember standing on the bag and thinking that Barbara’s father was down there, and I realized how dangerous that job was.
Later, I was working in a steel mill 4-12 p.m. and we got off at midnight. If you know steel mills or coal mines there are bars surrounding all the gates where the men went in and out. And across the railroad tracks from the mill I worked at was a bar-restaurant that actually advertised that they had color TV and it was air conditioned.
That was the place that we headed. It was the summer of 1964. We were talking politics, and these old miners and mill workers would come in there, watch TV and nurse beers in the evening. The wise ass that I am now was who I was then, and the old guys were all named Skee, or Stash, or Stanu, and I asked this old man who he was voting for in the presidential. He turned to me and said who’s running? And I said Lyndon Johnson and Barry Goldwater. And he looked at me and said my president is John L. Lewis. And I remember thinking what a fool he was until later I realized that the great John L. had done more for that guy than all the presidents put together.
John L. got vacation pay, safety in the mines, better pay. The Newfield coal mine had an incredibly bloody history. Management actually kept machine guns, tear gas bombs, and rifles to try and stop strikers and organizers.
To this day it angers me when some guy driving down I-25 in his BMW, sipping white wine in the evening with vacation pay, retirement plans, and medical benefits, says terrible things about the old unions. The unions won that for him as well.
Now comes Joe Biden. The publisher of this paper Chuck Bonniwell, Mark Crowley our site engineer, and myself were at the Trump convention in Cleveland in 2016. Walking around were two honest to God West Virginia coal miners. Their hard hats were covered with stickers, and they were beat up from hitting the sides of the mines. And I went over and introduced myself and they were the real deal, and they were there for Donald Trump. Hillary was threatening to shut down coal mining in America. Now Joe Biden wants to shut down coal mines and replace them with wind and solar. And I’m watching these greenies celebrate the kinds of men I just talked about losing their jobs.
Biden’s crack down on coal powered plants, new rules requiring coal plants and gas plants to match carbon captured technology and mitigate 90 percent of emissions, and instead of trying to meet those requirements, they’ll just close the mines. Pushing these men into retirement. It’s a sad day.
The choice that’s coming for us is in November, when we find ourselves really stumped by both candidates. This green agenda under a reelected Joe Biden is going to be costly. While our biggest rival, the Peoples Republic of China, has doubled its coal fired power growth to 2,400 coal fired power stations since the year 2000. They’ve doubled their coal fired plants and Joe Biden is closing ours down.
Can anybody on the Front Range imagine the impact on Colorado Springs and Pueblo where the coal plants are? You think those bird killer wind turbines are going to run the Front Range? I guess it just looks good on paper. And it makes me more of a Trump guy, and I hate Trump.
— Peter Boyles
by Peter Boyles | May 20, 2024 | Blasting with Boyles
Blasting With Boyles
OPINION
Traditionally the media found a way to take initials of prominent politicians and begin to write about them that way like FDR, JFK, HST, and Ike. What would LBJ and MCJ have in common? During the Vietnam war LBJ did one of the most underhanded monetary maneuvers that has never received a lot of attention. He raided Social Security funds to fight his war.
Now, let’s take our current mayor MCJ. He is raiding the budgets of the city of Denver to pay for his seemingly endless demands to support the homeless, to no avail, as the number of homeless in Denver has tripled since 2018.
In the most recent five years of data, the Denver metro area has seen a total number of people homeless rise from 5,200 to almost 15,000. The homeless crisis worsens despite the $274 million-dollar investment. Oh, and by the way, if you noticed how MCJ dresses and acts, wearing a white shirt, unbuttoned at the collar with the tie pulled down, sleeves rolled up, a disheveled look, he is channeling RFK Sr.
Continued raids on parks and recreation budgets, slashing recreation center hours, reducing snow plowing, and the police and fire budgets, but the showstopper is now the list of demands from illegal immigrants.
If you haven’t seen the 13 demands from the illegal immigrants (newcomers), they say that you as a taxpayer must meet those demands before they will leave their camps. The demands were presented by a white, blonde woman wearing a pro-Palestinian scarf. The demands include free immigration lawyers and, my personal favorite, culturally appropriate food with fresh ingredients provided by you the taxpayer instead of those premade meals. They want rice, chicken, flour, oil, butter, tomatoes, and onions, etc., that can be cooked on site.
They’ve lobbied Denver Human Services and they’re holding out and say the City has reneged on deals with them in the past. The demands are amazing, as they also claim they’re being punished for eating outside food. They claim their children are becoming malnourished because of the actions of the city of Denver.
They want medical help, unlimited shower access, the city will provide privacy for families and individuals within the shelter, no more verbal, physical, or mental abuse, including no sheriffs sleeping inside and monitoring them 24-7.
They say they’re not criminals but they’re being treated as such. Transportation for their kids to and from schools, the City must provide documents in Spanish and English, including numbers to call if they are being mistreated. And something I bet you can’t get, to schedule a meeting with MCJ.
I’m stunned by this. These are unbelievable demands. I’ve got $20 that says the City will meet, or is meeting, those demands as we speak. The late Bob Cote always talked about the bird feeder. Yeah you’re gonna get song birds, you’re gonna get squirrels, bears, and anything else that can reach in there and eat. Do you think these are the last demands these newcomers will make if this list of 13 is met?
I leave you with this. Denver has spent tens of millions of dollars on illegal immigrants and Denver property owners are being asked to open their homes to newcomer families. I wonder how many people are now living at the Mayor’s. Folks we’re in trouble. If you look back at what LBJ’s administration did you can almost predict the outcome of MCJ and the city of Denver.
— Peter Boyles
by Peter Boyles | Apr 19, 2024 | Blasting with Boyles
Blasting With Boyles
OPINION
How did this great hatred emerge between Iran and the United States? Always remember that when you get a degree in history you get an arts degree, you don’t get a science degree, because history is interpretive. And you can’t interpret two plus two equals other than it’s four, it can’t be five and it can’t be three. But in history two and two can equal five, or for that matter 105. So why do the Iranians hate the United States of America?
There is a short answer and there are long answers. But if you go back into the end of the Second World War, the Shah’s father was considered pro Germany. And he was overthrown by the Soviet-British movement. After the Second World War British Petroleum moves into Iran.
There as a democratically elected prime minister in 1953. His name was Mohammed Mossadegh.
There were enormous environmental crimes taking place in Iran around the oil. The Nazi Shah’s son was being placed back on the throne by an overthrow of the democratically elected government and the American CIA, British intelligence. The oil multinationals overthrew him and installed him again, through the eyes of history some say, with a brutal dictator, the Shah. For 27 years the Shah ran Iran. He was diagnosed with cancer, the United States said give him asylum, while the Iranians wanted to try him for his crimes. If you consider the reasons that the Iranians see the U.S. as a bully in the Middle East, ask yourself what would you or the U.S. do if a foreign power treated our country in that manner. Why is Iran our enemy?
After the arrival of the Ayatollahs and the Shah flees, then comes the Iran-Iraq War. Beginning in September of 1980 through August of 1988 some people believe the war continued off and on for years. It was triggered when Saddam invaded Iran. The United States, when Saddam was a good guy, supports Iraq giving Saddam several billion dollars in aid which included Bell helicopters. We now know through declassified CIA documents that the U.S. knew Saddam was using chemical weapons. Iranian death estimates are between 100,000 and 250,000 and the United States was helping pick targets for Saddam. And as I’ve said before you may not know much at all of this but the Iranians sure as hell do. That friendship was one of the green lights for Saddam to invade Kuwait thinking the U.S. was his ally.
Again, the country that I love engineers a coup against a democratically elected, mind you, secular government, and imposed a monarchy on the country for all of those years.
It’s important to remember Iranians are not Arabs. They consider themselves Indo Europeans and they are Shia Muslims which has set them on course against other Muslim countries.
My experience is most Iranians love our country, but the real issue, pretty much like everyone else, is with the government.
Following 9/11, George W. Bush, arguably the worst president in my lifetime, when now we all know that Saddam had nothing to do with that terrible day as well as Baby Kim in Korea, and they put Iran on what they call the axis of evil. I’m not defending them but none of those countries had anything to do with the terrible attack on our country on 9/11. The real perpetrators were the Saudi Arabians. And as history tells us December 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. As we all know December 8th FDR declared war against Japan. But in his stead George W. declares war against Saddam. That’s not lost on the power in the middle east. It may be lost on you and I, but for the so-called man in the street in the Middle East, it’s not lost on them. So, what’s the way out?
I come back to those moments that historians have said there are places in the world where there is no tomorrow it’s simply yesterday repeating itself.
You gotta ask yourself why are we there? And now we seem to have a host of enemies that could have been avoided. The Iranians that I have met are very generous people and what do you do when they say they want to defend the honor of their people? And the killing continues.
Thanks for taking time out to read this. I remain as puzzled as you are.
— Peter Boyles
